The Tale of the Golden Crown
by High Queenof Narnia
Summary: Aibhlinn Smith is your average New Yorker. Completely normal,except she's not human. She is a changeling, a fay child who was left with a human family to wreak havoc. Now's she's an adult who constantly flits back and forth between the human and the fay's world. One day several of her wards grow sick with a fay disease and she can only save them with the help of the Elven Princess.
1. Prologue

**Aibhlinn Ultana Smith is your average everyday New Yorker. She enjoys a good cup of coffee, window shopping, and works hard at her job as a CPS worker. Completely normal, except she's not human. She is a changeling, a fay child who was left with a human family to wreak havoc. Now's she's a grown woman who constantly flits back and forth between the human and the fay's world. One day when she was checking one of the children she looks after she discovers he and several others have been affected by a mysterious illness that doesn't seem to have come from the human world. Making up her mind she meanders into the Boston troll market where she gets wrapped up in the beginnings of a war between the human and fay if the Elven prince has his way. Now she must not only find out how to deal with this new sickness but try and stop an impending war. What's a fay girl to do?**

 _ **Prologue**_

Stories were my lifeblood. To me everything held a story and I wanted to hear them all. I would beg my parents every spare moment we had to hear a story woven from the words that fell from their mouths. Whether it was about Cinderella's escape from a cruel family or a Thousand and One Night Stories, or a hundred years worth of tales from a tree we often sat under in the park to the past belonging to a random seashell washed up on shore I had found. I wanted to hear them all. But my favorite stories by far are the ones about normal people who ended up being not so normal after all. People like me.

And now that I am old and graying I believe it is time to tell my own story. One filled with magic, elven princes, sword fights, and a wicked evil that threatened all. So let's start from the very beginning with a catchphrase that every human knows,

" _Once upon a time….."_


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **A Story's Beginning**

In the middle of a jungle of city buildings filled with false moons shining along the ever awake paths through Boston, a lone maidan fought her way through a sea of people, rushing to get to her destination inside the steel walls that loomed ominously over her and so many others. Ever since she was young, city walls always felt like a prison that kept her trapped within the poisonous fire that threatened her world and kin. A pretty prison filled with sweet faux promises, but a prison nonetheless.

She slipped and slid slightly as her sneakers struggled to catch their grip to the sidewalks she trotted along. Rain fell heavily, largely obstructing her view, and the large galaxy printed umbrella she held in one hand did nothing to keep the water from hitting her, to the point that she wondered why she even owned the stupid thing when it rarely ever helped her. Her other hand clutched a cotton candy coloured backpack to her chest, trying her best to keep it and the contents it held as dry as possible. Then catching her eyes finally was her destination, the whole reason she was out in this hurricane, her workplace.

Hurrying up the steps she bursted through the doors to the quaint little building that was home to her office. Upon entering she set her umbrella right by the door and promptly rushes to her desk and collapsed into her chair. Taking a deep breath, she focused her mind to get ready for the day's tasks. She sat up fully once her breath had evened out and pulled out a folder, that very obviously contained multiple papers, from her backpack and began to enter her mind into her work mode. She searched through the papers for only a minute before taking out the appropriate ones and settled them to the side of her desk before replacing her laptop with a bit of excitement.

Today was the day she got to visit a few of her kids in their new homes. She worked for child protective services and was in charge of home placing and the inspections that came after a child was placed in a foster home. She was also in charge of withdrawal if it was, unfortunately, necessary. Opening the laptop she started to clack on the overused keys and started the old hunk of electronic on.

She hummed to herself while she started to flip through her planner to see which child she got to see today. Green eyes widened as a small smile crept up on her pale freckled cover face. Of all the children she had in her care, this one had to be her absolute favorite. Of course she loved all of the kids that came to her through the system, even if they did come to her through sad means, it was the whole reason why she was here in the first place, in the city and in this job after all, but this one child held a special place in her heart.

Bright brown eyes hidden behind round spectacles and shaggy blonde hair surrounding a pale, freckled face flashed through her mind.

Nicholas Benjamin, an eight year old boy in the system since he was three when his parents were killed. In the official police files a wild dog or some other equally large animal had gone rabid and his parents had been unfortunate collaterals in its rampage. What had happened in actuality was that a serpopard, an Egyptian creature with a large cat's body and the neck and head of a snake, had somehow got loose in downtown Boston where they just happened to be living. The poor boy had seen the entire thing from his crib, and has been traumatized by it ever since. Especially since nobody believed him about what had happened, believing it to be a child's imagination exaggerating what had really happened.

It didn't help that Nick had the sight, whether he was originally meant too or if it had been a result of what he had seen no one knew. Whatever the reason Nick now had the gift of seeing through fay glamour, there were limits of course. Certain fay were far stronger than others but he could see through most, and that caused an issue in giving him a home and life he deserved.

No one wanted to house a child who claimed to see things that, to the normal human eye, couldn't be seen. Granted living in New York, as heavily populated with humans and polluted with toxins as it was, there weren't too much fay to be seen-as most fay were not powerful enough to handle living in such an area but that didn't mean there wasn't any around at all. After all she had met nymphs who lived in central park on several occasions and the rivers and streams back in her hometown had many a merrow that she often played with before and after school. And she herself was a changeling, a fairy who replaced a human couples baby when she herself was a babe, in order to wreck havoc and bring bad luck to them over and over till they banished her. She snorted, as memories of her own first family came up. They had actually loved her no matter what damage she had brought to them and they had earned her love in return until they had left her.

She quickly shook her head to bring herself back to reality, there was no reason to go back down that road. She had come to far and had to many people depending on her to go down that route. Glancing at the clock on the other side of the office space she saw that there was still two hours to go before she had to make the check up. Groaning she smacked her laptop with her hand and it finally booted up. Typing in her password she pulled up the files on the newest home Nick had been sent to.

Nia and Balial Popoola, an older black couple living uptown New York city. Balial was a famous photographer, who shot photos of anything and everything he could get his hands on, but mainly did fashion shoots for magazines. Nia, on the other hand, was a fashion designer and part-time model, which it turned out was how they met, and together racked in quite a handsome income on top of the already large inheritance they had. They had enough to buy out the entire state of New York, and still take care of themselves and several generations beyond them. Which meant Nick never had to worry about money issues. That was the only big bonus that she had seen and wanted for Nick.

Sighing she realized that if she wanted to get there on time she would have to leave in a few minutes. Turning around in her chair she looked back out her office doors to see a light drizzle, which was far better than what it was before, but still not something she would like to walk in. Perhaps she would take a taxi? She deliberated in her mind as she started to pack up her desk slightly and left a couple papers out so she could file them on her way out the door. She fully decided to take a taxi as she left her office, her bag over her shoulder and her umbrella in hand. She dashed out the doors she had just recently rushed into and went to the edge of the sidewalk to hail a taxi.

"Taxi!" She called as a few flew by her without acknowledging her presence until finally one pulled over and let her open the door and climb in.

" Where to Miss?" the cabbie asked. She gave him the address and the cabbie nodded before starting the meter as they pulled out into traffic. She took the moment to fully compose herself, pulling a small compact mirror out of her bags top pocket she flipped it open and assessed how she looked.

Curly ginger hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail before flowing down her back and resting on her left shoulder. Almond shaped moss green eyes stared back at her as she took in her pale skin, small slightly upturned nose, plush red lips and flushed pink cheeks. She generally avoided using makeup as many of the products used things that she was allergic to, not to mention it took an awful lot of time she could be using to do something more productive than trying to please the members of the human society.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself she put the compact away and looked out the window wondering where the day would lead. She had three more children to visit after Nick and then she had several files of paperwork to fill out after that, and that was assuming all four families were up to code and there was nothing untoward happening.

Suddenly she was jerked out of her mental listing by the car stopping fast, and she skid forward in her seat slightly, held back only by her seat belt tightening. New York taxis, they were going to be the death of her someday.

" We're here Miss!" The cab driver had shouted and looked back at me. She must've been thinking for longer than she realized.

" Thank you, how much do I owe you?" She asked.

" About $32.75 Miss." She ruffled through her bag before finding her wallet and pulled out four tens. Handing it to the cabbie driver she put her wallet back and pulled out a clipboard with some notebook sheets as a replacement.

" Keep the change, please have a good day." She said as she opens the door, grabbing her bag and swung it over her shoulder as she got out. Shutting the door gently she turned to get a full look of the house. Looking at the two story house she noticed a dark somber feeling all about it. The plants surrounding the white building seemed to droop slightly in dead. Excitement swelled through her, despite the terrible feeling, at the thought of seeing the little boy again, hopefully happy. Perhaps they were still adjusting to taking care of the small bit so they hadn't had the time for gardening?

Walking up to the house she rang the doorbell and stood patiently as the bell sound rung so loudly throughout the house even she could hear it through the walls. Sensitive ears caught footsteps racing through the house two story house before the door swung so fast that she was certain it would have had whiplash if it wasn't an inanimate object.

"Doc-Oh! Miss Aibhlinn, you are here." Cried out from a small woman in front of me. Course black hair was thrown up in a careless bun with most of it hanging around in her face in disarray. Her usual dark skin was pale and almost ashy looking except for the obvious tear stains she had, coming from almost glazed almond colored eyes. Thrown back by the other woman's wild look her mind stalled. What had happened in the three week's since she'd last been here, and why hasn't she known about it?

"Erm are you alright?" The words had slipped out before her brain could fully take in what was happening. Then the panic started to set in. Had something happened to her husband? Or worse Nick?

She shook her slowly, tears started to glistened in her eyes again, "N-no not really. We've tried practically everything and no one can identify what he has or how to make it better and he's getting worse by the day! And now I don't know what to do!" Her voice cracked several times and by the end of her spiel, her entire body was shaking from the effort of trying to keep calm but it was all for naught as the tears spilled over into gut wrenching sobs. She had said he.

"Nia…..don't tell me Nick is…?" She couldn't even finish the sentence. There was no way. He was only eight. He couldn't be as close to death's door as Nia made it sound.

Her brain practically stopped functioning as Nia nodded her head. Aibhlinn had to see for herself. Before Nia could even process it Aibhlinn was in the house and halfway up the stairs to see Nick's room. She had been here a few times before so she knew where it was but even if she hadn't Aibhlinn was in Fay mode. She could not hear two heartbeats, one strong but slightly fast, the other weak and only barely there.

Suddenly she was in front of his door and her hand trembled as she went to open it. The voices on the other side confirmed she was at the right door. Taking a deep breath Aibhlinn forced her arm to stop shaking. Sending a quick prayer up to the gods she opened the door.

Her heart stopped beating.


	3. Chapter 2

**_My vast apologies for posting this so late a lot of things had come up (school work, volunteering, and applying to Job Corp takes a surprising amount of time) and before I knew it a month had past . This is chapter is not as long or as good as I would have liked it to be but eventually I will go back and rewrite it. I hope you enjoy it regardless and reviews are always welcomed! Also many thanks to AnimeGamerGirl23, BlechBlah5956, Shiranai Atsune, Starlit Storyteller, roselisa, AquaJMGirl, & DocterCroc for favoriting and/or following!_**

Chapter 2

A Fairy's Curse

Murderous screams filled the room, coming from the small frail body strapped to the bed. Black hair was thrown about as his sweat covered head thrashed about in anger. It was obvious he was beyond anger even, he was downright ready to kill whoever was dumb enough to come near.

This had been happening for two weeks they had said. It had originally started as a small cold so they hadn't bothered informing anyone thinking it would go away in 24 hours. But then it got slowly worse, he got angry over the smallest of things and not before long he reacted violently towards those that made him angry. In between these anger bouts the pain had started. Again small at first, a headache here, a stomach ache there. Now he cried out in his times of sanity that his whole body felt like it was on fire but frozen solid at the same time and that he was being crushed but stretched out too.

None of the doctors they brought in could figure out what was wrong. His MRIs and CAT scans brought up nothing out of the ordinary but his blood test showed an unusual substance mixed in. A venom of some sort they had never seen before, and they could find no puncture wound or scratch that it could have entered through so they assumed he had somehow eaten something with the unknown venom unfortunately mixed in.

Aibhlinn knew better.

This sickness was not something of the mortal world. While she didn't know what exactly it was she could feel the Fey aura left behind. More than likely what had happened was that he had encountered a Fey while out playing somewhere unattended, probably in the back gardens or in the few minutes they lost him in the sea of children at a park they took him to, and he had probably either unintentionally angered it or it had given him this because it didn't like humans. It might have even been an accident that he had received it.

She knew of many Fey like that. After all there was the Catoblepas, a Minotaur like creature whose breath was poisonous and it's gaze could kill, when it could actually lift it's heavy head up that is. Or even the Mongolian Death Worm which lives underground and can spit either poison or a jolt of electricity depending on which subspecies you happened to have come across. But neither of those made much sense nor any other creatures she could think of. Most Fey's powers were designed to kill almost instantly, if not within a few hours to a week when it came to poison. And none she knew of caused extreme bouts of anger like this at the same time. If he had been fighting to get to someone or even somewhere she might have thought a subspecies or the merfolk but he apparently had no desire to do anything but hurt other people. She didn't like this.

She didn't like this at all.

This would require her to either visit the Bureau or the Troll market to do research, if she couldn't get answers from one of her books at home. She hoped to the gods above it didn't come to either of those options. If she visited the Bureau and they found out she existed she knew they would "politely" ask her to join and intervene in her life so much she would have no choice but to do so, if they didn't lock her up straight away instead. But on the other if she inquired of such a illness at the Troll market, word could spread until it reached the ears of the old elven King, Balor, and that would be just as bad. He could believe she had done this and wouldn't just lock her up but would punish her beyond all belief before killing her for daring to break the treaty and then do nothing for Nick regardless.

No it was safer to do it on her own, with her own resources.

Sighing she gripped the cup she was holding so hard she could feel the cracks forming in it. The chamomile smelling steam floated up in waves around her, doing their best to soothe her troubled mind but even this age old cure could do nothing for her now. Not when one of her wards was slowly dying. She glanced across the cherry wood table she was sitting at towards Nick's adoptive parents. If this was hard on her she couldn't even imagine what they felt like. To finally have a child, even if not one of their own flesh,after years of trying only to be cruelly taken away again so quickly? It must be horrible, what they're feeling.

She could hear the creaking of the bed as Nick's small body tried to break from his restraints. He should be in a hospital according to the many doctors who had examined him, and he had been for a few days, but once they got word that they could do nothing for the young boy they brought him home, not wanting him to die in such a place. An honorable thought, but hopefully an unneeded one.

"Mr. and Mrs. Popoola can you tell why I wasn't informed of this once the symptoms got worse than a simple cold?" Aibhlinn asked as calmly as she could. Not informing her of a cold is one thing, but Nick was dying, she should have been informed as soon as the doctor said it wasn't. It was against protocol for them not to. She watched as the parents shifted and their heads lowered slightly, looking a lot scolded children.

"We should 'ave, we know zhat. But it slipped our minds as we tried 'arder and 'arder to find new doctors to 'elp figure out what is wrong with Nick. It is no excuse but it is what 'appened." Balial responded in a heavy french accent.

"If you can think of nothing else to tell me I must be on my way to file this in. Please though if you think of anything else, such as a strange person you saw around him or even a more specific time or place this started call me immediately." She rose from her chair, pushing her now cold tea away from her. When she saw them start to rise as well she waved them away, "I can see myself out, you should focus on Nick. He needs all the help he can get." They nodded their heads. Balial held his hand out to her.

"Thank you for everything and we will be sure to give you a call if anything else comes up." I took his hand and gave it a small shake, nodding to Nia I grabbed my back and walked out of the drawing room we had been in. Turning my head briefly in Nick's room direction I squared my shoulders and walked out. I was determined to help him. His life had been destroyed enough by us Fey, he didn't deserve this kind of death.

Walking quickly out the door, I fished my phone out of my bag's front pocket to call a taxi. I needed to get to work as quickly as possible to get home just as fast. Turning it on I noticed I had several missed calls and voicemails from her work space. She really hope they didn't get a new case right now. There's no way she would be able to focus on Nick's illness and another child fresh into the system at the same time. Sighing she called the Taxi and gave the person her info before calling her voicemail. Putting in her password she listened patiently to the bot drone on about options before the messages started playing. Her heart seized up as each messaged played.

You had to of been kidding her. She watched slightly dazed as the taxi showed up. Shutting her phone off she climbed in quickly. She had no time to lose. Nick wasn't the only one, there were three others who were just as bad and even more developing symptoms of this new sickness. She needed to get to the bottom of this. Now.

One is a coincidence, but three others? And even more showing signs of starting to develop it. Someone was harming children, more specifically children in the system, and someone was going to pay. But the question that made her head whirl was who. Who would do this to innocent children?

The taxi had started to slow as it approached her home. Her heart pounding as she was jerked out of her thoughts. She quickly paid the driver and got out. She could care less around the exact amount the driver needed nor the needed to get inside, to get to her books so she can solve this problem before it was too late. She rummaged through her bag to find her house keys as she walked into the gated community she called home. She sprinted up to her door and fumbles with the keys for a few seconds until she can finally get them into the lock and open up to her abode.

In one fluent motion she entered and closed the door behind her. At first she was in complete darkness but a flick of her wrist against the switch has the light turning on and flooding the area with it's artificial brightness. She cringed at the false light for a second, far more use to the low lighting of candles in her studio apartment. Her apartment wasn't much, one room with a section cut out to be a kitchen and a little hallway with two closest leading to a bathroom. Little candle holders were nailed to the walls giving a more medieval feel to it. A twin sized bed was a placed right next to the door with the blankets in a mess. A few shelves had been placed up to display the few knick knacks she owned and in the far right corner right next to the hallway a wooden table with a black fabric with gold embroidery draped across it. On top of the fabric two statues, one a of a women with overly sized breast, stomach, and genitals with her arms raised and merging together and the othe a muscular man and long shaggy hair and horns, along with a wand carved out of birchwood, some feathers, a seashell, and a cow's horn polished into a goblet. Along the rest of her "living room" walls were ceiling to floor bookshelves filled with all sorts of genres. She tossed her bags onto her bed and dashed to the corner her room towards her bookshelves. She grabbed any books she had on Fey creatures and a few healing books and scanned through looking for anything. Anything at all that matched what she had saw. The thought of the children in such a state had her seeing red. She took a deep breath and went back to searching. None of the creatures seem to match at all. Wrong symptoms after wrong symptoms came up with every turn of the page. None of them matched. Then she tried to narrow it down by where they lived, perhaps the symptoms didn't math because they were kids and the venom was more deadly but that wasn't effective because of the troll market and all walks of creature get traded in and out.

Frustrated with the hours of searching, she rubbed her forehead with her hands. She had made with zero progress besides the migraine that was now forming. She had read all her books inside and out and she just couldn't find anything to match.

Collapsing onto her bed she let out a groan as a pile of books fell. Forcing herself to sit up and see the damage, some of the books were so old that if she wasn't careful they would fall apart, her tired eyes roamed over the mess. None of them seemed damaged at all and she was glad for that. Resewing books was quite a pain. Her eyes landed on one book in particular and she tilted her head in thought. The book had landed open on elves, specifically the Bethmoorian type. She had heard of elven healing abilities and the princess was known to be a salvant when it came to healing and mind reading. It was very risky, the plan that was forming in her head. She could easily die and and so could her kids. But really she was left with no choice now.

She had to go to the troll market.


End file.
